Selected Poems and Letters

by Rosenberg, Isaac; Liddiard, Jean

• ISBN13: 9781900564892
• ISBN10: 1900564890
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-01
• Publisher: Enitharmon Press

Summary

Only collection of this fine war poet's work in print. Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) has long been regarded as one of the most important artistic figures of the First World War. His poems, such as "Dead Man's Dump" and "Break of Day in the Trenches," h

Author Biography

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol in 1890 to Jewish immigrant parents from Lithuania. His family moved to the East End of London in 1897, and after a rudimentary education Rosenberg at 14 was apprenticed to an engraver. Wealthy patrons enabled him to study at the Slade School of Art (1911-14) at the same time as Stanley Spencer and Mark Gertler, and for nine months in 1914-15 he lived in South Africa. The only poems to be collected in his lifetime were self-published in a pamphlet form – Night and Day (1912), Youth (1915) and Moses (1916). Enlisting in the Army in October 1915 he served on the Western Front until his death on night patrol on 1 April 1918.

Table of Contents

Chronology	9	(6)
Publications and Collections of Manuscripts, Paintings and Drawings	15	(4)
Introduction	19	(21)
Acknowledgements	40	(3)
POEMS
Dawn Behind Night	43	(1)
'The world rumbles by me'	44	(1)
'God looked clear at me through her eyes'	45	(1)
Now the spirit's song has withered'	46	(1)
Peace	47	(1)
Don Juan's Song	48	(1)
'Even now your eyes are mixed in mine'	49	(1)
extract from Day (Night and Day)	50	(2)
Aspiration	52	(1)
Heart's First Word (I)	53	(1)
The Poet (II)	54	(1)
Song	55	(1)
'Have we sailed and have we wandered'	56	(1)
Dawn	57	(1)
The Female God	58	(1)
'Summer's lips are aglow'	59	(1)
'I am the blood'	60	(1)
In Receiving News of the War	61	(1)
A Girl's Thoughts	62	(1)
Wedded (I)	63	(1)
Wedded (II)	64	(1)
Midsummer Frost (I)	65	(2)
Midsummer Frost (II)	67	(2)
If You Are Fire	69	(1)
Break In by Subtler Ways	70	(1)
The One Lost	71	(1)
The Dead Heroes	72	(1)
The Cloister	73	(1)
Expression	74	(1)
God	75	(1)
First Fruit	76	(1)
Chagrin	77	(1)
Marching (As Seen from the Left File)	78	(1)
Sleep	79	(1)
Heart's First Word (II)	80	(1)
'Green thoughts are'	81	(1)
Lusitania	82	(1)
The "Troop Ship	83	(1)
August 1914	84	(1)
The Jew	85	(1)
Spring 1916	86	(2)
From France	88	(1)
In the Trenches	89	(1)
Break of Day in the Trenches	90	(2)
Home "Thoughts From France	92	(1)
'A worm fed on the heart of Corinth'	93	(1)
The Dying Soldier	94	(1)
In War	95	(3)
The Immortals	98	(1)
Louse Hunting	99	(1)
Returning, We Hear the Larks	100	(1)
Dead Man's Dump	101	(6)
Daughters of War	107	(2)
Soldier: Twentieth Century	109	(1)
Girl to Soldier on Leave	110	(1)
The Burning of the Temple	111	(1)
The Destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Hordes	112	(1)
'Through these pale cold days'	113	(4)
LETTERS
Biographical notes on main recipients	117	(4)
Selected letters 1910-18	121	(57)
Index of first lines	178